Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/13/25: Krystal And Saagar DEBATE Climate Change DEI Amid LA Fires, Hasan Interviews Inmate Firefighters

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss climate change as LA engulfed, Hasan interviews inmate firefighters.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you,

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What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. We're going to lead off this show with the very latest on of those LA fires. The firefighters have made some progress but there is concerns

that high winds will be kicking back up so we'll show you the latest devastating images coming out of that great city. We're also going to take a look at Mark Zuckerberg going on with Joe Rogan, making some claims. Matt Stoller is going to be here. He's had a change of heart. It has nothing to do with anything else. It's purely out of the goodness of his heart. He's realized the error of decades

of his way. Yeah, and just happens to also take great issue with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, just like Mark Andreessen when he went on Joe Rogan's show. So anyway, Matt Siller will be here to break that down. Very interesting situation. TikTok is set to be banned. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week about, you know, making the case in either direction. And they seem to be pretty divided. So very unclear the future of TikTok.

So we'll break that down for you as well. Have an incredible clip from MSNBC. Mika Brzezinski still thinks Joe Biden could have won. And Joe Biden agrees. So we've got some comments from the big man himself. I don't even know what you say about that at this point. I'm taking a look at the way that oligarchy contributed to these fires and many other ills in our country and the world. And we're going to have Derek Thompson here from Atlantic Magazine. He just wrote a big piece on how what this has become, what he's describing as the antisocial century. Trends that have been in place in American life that have led to, you know, community breakdown and people really withdrawing into their homes have been accelerated both by the pandemic, but I think more in particular by our phones. And he's taking a look at what the consequences of that could be

in terms of our society. Really fascinating piece. A lot of different aspects of this one. So I'm looking forward to talking to him. Yeah, this is like all of the big social trends of the last decade, maybe even really like two decades, I would say. And COVID accelerated it, but it is a big crisis. We talk about here loneliness, young men, et cetera, but it really is just all of us. It's not about young people. It's older people as well. And the pandemic and phones technology have fundamentally reset the way Americans spend almost all of their time. And we don't really think about it. It's not an intentional decision. And I think that he really dives into what that is and about maybe some of

the things that we can do to fight back against it. Thank you very much to everybody who's been supporting the show. We appreciate you, but let's get to Los Angeles. Yeah, absolutely. So you can go ahead and put these latest images up on the screen and I'll just give you some updates here. What you're looking at, this is incredible. This is an aerial water drop. I've seen a number of these videos and the way that these guys and gals are able to drop the water in like the perfect location is really quite incredible. This was one of the latest fires that broke down, the Brentwood Fire. This one, fortunately, the firefighters have been able to get under control. So the risk there has been eliminated.

These are daredevil morons. I don't know what's wrong with them, but they're riding through the Palisades. You can see, you know, the embers flying everywhere, just trying to get a thrill. And the fire is still raging. A number of these, because, you know, this wasn't just one fire. This is a number of different fires in the region stoked by drought conditions, very high winds, high temperatures as compared to history. And, you know, multiple blazes still going. Here you have firefighters who are doing their best to get these flames under control. I read there's been more than 14,000 personnel from California, nine other states, Canada, and Mexico that have been mobilized

to L.A. to battle these wildfires. We're also going to show you some footage later of some of the incarcerated inmates who have been part of the firefighting crew, roughly 1,000 state prisoners who have been part of the response here. These are goats that are being evacuated and brought to safety. And it's just a wild image to see them, you know, trying to be evacuated from the area with these fires blazing right there, just to be evacuated from the area with these fires blazing right there, just to show you some of the impact on wildlife as well. You know, the very latest state of affairs is they have gotten, they have made some progress against these blazes, which is really great to see. Some of the danger has been reduced. However, number one, you already have at

least 16 deaths and first responders are quite worried that they will uncover quite a lot more. You know, right now they're just focusing on trying to get the blazes under control. And once they go into search and recovery, there are people who are still reported missing. So a lot of concerns that that number is going to increase. More than 10,000 structures damaged or destroyed. The worst two fires here, the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire, are the worst and the second worst fires in the history of LA County. They also are some of the worst in California history as well in terms of the level of devastation. So it just is absolutely apocalyptic. And the real concern, Sagar, is they're looking at the weather forecast and they're expecting gusts from the Santa Ana winds on the order of 50 to 65 miles

per hour. That's expected to start today. The strongest winds are expected to arrive before dawn on Tuesday, peaking through Wednesday. And we know the way that those winds fueled these blazes to begin with. So a lot of concern about what those winds could potentially bring here as we move into the week. Yeah, I was just reading this morning from the National Weather Service is not only that Tuesday exceeding 50 miles per hour combined with apparently a very, very dry air on top of the current conditions. So it's really tragic and it doesn't look like it will end anytime soon as heroic as the firefighters and many others have been in trying to contain the disaster. But then beyond that has been some of the bigger questions we talked about in our last show here about water reservoir, about water management, and about the Los Angeles Fire Department. And there were some big questions here at the show and including afterwards,

did the budget actually get cut? And we believe that we have, what is it? We believe we have arrived at the definitive statement. It was cut by some $17 million. How it got there is a little bit complicated. I'll let you explain that, but I did want to settle that for everybody before we played this clip of the LA Fire Chief, because there were criticisms, people saying they're trying to allay their own concerns. But it does seem that there is a shortfall of actual firefighters themselves, that this budget, immediate budget crisis didn't necessarily contribute to them not being that. It is instead indicative of the fact that Los Angeles has chronically underinvested in its public infrastructure and others, water management, fire disaster. And the big glaring

question mark is, how does State Farm Insurance, eight months ago, look at 70% of its coverage in Pacific Palisades and be like, yeah, this ain't going to work. This is way too risky. We need to pull every single one of these policies. But the city itself is unable to see the exact same conditions and know that a conflagration is immediately possible in that area. Yeah. I mean, there's only so much they could do, right? I mean, the big picture here is climate fuel catastrophes and no state, no city is going to be able to avoid them. I mean, this is the era that we live in. But within the context of that, there's no doubt that the fire department is underfunded. Now, the budgeting piece is complicated. That's why you'll see competing narratives and a lot of certainty online in

both directions. I think what is undeniable is that the department was decidedly underfunded, had lost a number of positions. They were short-staffed even on non-firefighting positions like the people that you need to repair the fire truck so that they are operable, just really completely stretched thin, their personnel numbers have dropped, even as the number of service calls have gone up by some marked percentage. So I'll get to some of those details. Our friends Ryan and Co. over at Dropsite are actually the ones who called the controllers and said, what the hell is going on here?

What are the actual numbers? What are the realities? So I'll dig into that. At the same time, the L.A. fire chief, Kristen Crowley, is mincing no words in her frustration about the lack of funding and the lack of resources and the constraints that they have had to operate under, and specifically expressing frustration with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Here she is on CNN sounding off on her view of the situation. Let me be clear. The 17 million dollar budget cut and elimination of our civilian positions like our mechanics did and has and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair our apparatus. So with that, we have over 100 fire apparatus out of service. And having these apparatus in the proper amount of mechanics would have helped. And so it did absolutely negatively impact.

I want to also be clear that I have, over the last three years, been clear that the fire department needs help. We can no longer sustain where we are. We do not have enough firefighters. With that, I have also requested multiple budgets, interim budgets to show how understaffed, under-resourced, and underfunded the LEFB is. So there you have the fire department chief herself saying, yes, the budget was cut by $17 million. We can put this drop site tear sheet up on the screen that did. I recommend you read through it because it really goes beyond just this question of did they cut it $17 million or not? The reality is that they are facing unprecedented challenges and they are decidedly lacking

insufficient resources to even come close to dealing with it. And again, I do want to keep the focus on, like, there is no city, there is no mayor, there is no governor that could deal with the larger forces that made this conflagration so absolutely devastating. However, in this era, you have to be focused on what are our best chances of mitigating the impact from these climate catastrophes. So let me just read you a little bit of this article from Jessica Burbank, who did all the legwork on the reporting here. She says the LA Fire Department knew it was severely underfunded long before this fire. We don't have enough firefighters and medics. We don't have enough fire engines. We don't have enough trucks and ambulances in the field. That was an LAFD captain

during city testimony at a budget hearing back last May 1st, 2024. And we don't have the equipment and staffing we need to respond to half a million emergency calls for service every year. Explained that demand for fire and rescue has doubled while resources have dwindled. The LAFD has fewer firefighters and medics today than we had 15 years ago. But our emergency calls for service has increased by more than 50 percent during that same time. Just as one more example of how this underfunding, you know, is it's actually a longtime problem, predates Karen Bass, but made worse by this most recent budget. And, you know, in the most recent budget, it wasn't just firefighting that got cut. A lot of social services got cut. The public works department got cut. Homelessness services got cut. The police department got a big, huge increase in their budget, multi-million

dollar increase in their budget. I'll go through some of those numbers in my monologue today. But they say 86 emergency vehicles at that May date were out of commission because they did not have the funds to hire sheet metal workers and mechanics to fix them. That included 40 fire engines, 36 ambulances, 10 fire trucks. And Captain Chung Ho testified during a budget hearing, it just makes no sense to have million-dollar fire trucks and engines taken out of service and sidelined because we don't have enough mechanics to keep them running. And finally, just to put about this question about the $17 million, blah, blah, blah, the city controller who, you know, oversees the budget, who also complained about how they're short-staffed and don't have accountants to handle payroll as well and are stretched incredibly thin, they also confirmed to DropSite News, yes, their operating budget did get reduced by $17.6 million. Sagar, as best I can figure out, the reason there's confusion is because budgeting is really

complicated. So part of what happens with these departments is they'll get a certain operating budget, and then it's just not sufficient for them to do the very basics of what they're obligated to do. They will go over budget. Then additional funds will be shifted around to try to make them whole. So how do you count that? How do you count some of these one-time expenditures? Okay, well, if you spent that amount last cycle and then you're not planning on this one-time expenditure this cycle, does that count as a funding cut? So it is a little bit of a complicated picture. So I think getting away from the $17 million, the bottom line is this department is underfunded and in an era of climate catastrophe, you know, these are the sorts of things that really deserve our attention, resources, tax dollars, et cetera. Well, part of

why it's so absurd, at least to me, is this is one of the richest cities in the United States. It's like if you look at even these areas, Pacific Palisades and others, we're talking about multi-billions and just neighborhood level of the amount of tax revenue. I mean, some of these people who are losing their homes are multi-millionaires, and they pay literally the highest tax rate in the United States. So how exactly can you still have budget problems? I think it's a big question. It's one of the big areas in which you really do have failed governance in some of a lot of these main cities is you have this tremendous amount of wealth. And it's like, well, how exactly does this work? What are you guys doing with this money? So I think that's one question. But like two is just like you said, look, you know, we can talk

climate or whatever. I don't think it's indisputable that things have been getting bad lately with Florida, with California, etc. We could debate exactly the extent to what. But in the era of which we at least know with some predictability that we have disasters, it doesn't seem unreasonable that we should probably be chronically investing in quote-unquote firefighters and all of the disaster mitigation technology and all of these other things. And I just keep coming back to the fact that it is clear to me that the home insurance companies, et cetera, and others have been able to predict with decent enough regularity and prescience some of the existential problems

that they face. Sure, cities don't have the luxury of being able to pull coverage, but they do have the luxury of knowing that they will have to respond to that. And so clearly, like, what, what, the work that needed to be done going into this for management of a large city, uh, clearly was just not done. I also, you know, I was looking in the past, fire has been a longtime problem, uh, in the city of Los Angeles, apparently going all the way back to its founding, just because of the dry and the arid conditions, the Santa Ana winds, long, all the way back to the 1800s, the stories of horrible fires that ripped through the city. So this is not something that is unpredictable, even in a normal environment. Now, the extent to which it has now come is really bad.

Yeah. And, you know, we were looking at some of the ways it seems to have been started. In initial analysis, it seems it was a reigniting of a fire that had been put out on New Year's Eve. This is 100%. You talk about the Palisades one specifically. The original Palisades fire. That fire seems to have started after it was reignited, was put out on New Year's Eve, seems to have been caused, according to local residents, by people lighting off fireworks,

even though they weren't supposed to. That was put out. But the embers apparently were there. And then when the winds picked up some eight days later, it was able to reignite. It seems to have happened in the exact same place that it did whenever they were put it out some eight days ago. So a little bit of a lesson there. I come from Texas, too, where we have orders, you know, whenever there are dry conditions, like, don't do any fireworks. People always do it, and this is part of the problem with that.

Yeah, so obviously the Santa Ana winds and this area being wildfire prone, that's nothing new. What has supercharged this situation and why researchers feel confident, you know, attributing the level of devastation to climate change is because of the nearly unprecedented drought conditions combined with increased temperatures. And then you also have, you know, more human beings living closer to these wildland areas so that when they're lighting off fireworks or, you know, whatever, and also just their houses are closer to the danger zone where when there is a wildfire, they're immediately impacted, which obviously contributes to the devastation here. I think everything that might've dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden

years of hip-hop it's black music month and we need to talk is tapping in i'm nyla simone breaking down lyrics amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives my favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes yeah now i'm curious do they like rap along now yeah because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now, too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's, like, really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend.

So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me, just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like, that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general.

Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion

dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't

working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one

week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Gavin Newsom, who's been, you know, taking a lot of incoming from Trump and a lot of other people, governor of California, of course, joined the Pod Save guys to talk a little bit about what Trump has been saying and his criticism of the response. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. It seems like you're trying to walk a very fine line here, extending an open hand to Trump as you signed your letter, but also calling him out for spreading disinformation. Is that because you have concerns that he might withhold disaster assistance when he becomes president? He's been pretty straightforward about that. He's

tried to do it in the past. He's not just done it here in California. He's done it in states all across the country. What's the disinformation you were referring to in the letter and what is the correct information? Well, I mean, look, what the president-elect was saying about state water project and the Delta smelt, somehow being culpable of somehow leading to some of the challenges that we face down here. It's words. It's a salad. It's the form and substance of fog. It's made up. It's delusional. And it's a consistent mantra from Trump going back years and years and years. And it's reinforced over and over and over within the right wing. And so it's become gospel. And it's so profoundly ignorant. And yet he absolutely believes it.

It's not an ignorance on his part. It's such it's sort of an indelible misinformation that he sort of manifested. He's referring, I think, specifically to Trump Trump has long talked about this forest management situation, which there isn't a lot of evidence that that is what, Contreras, you were just laying out, like the fireworks situation in the Palisades doesn't have to do with the forest management. In addition, Newsom has actually increased by millions of dollars the amount of resources going to exactly this kind of forest management and the number of acres that are under management. So he has done the thing that Trump wanted him to do, but that of course won't stop Trump from saying whatever Trump is going to say and people

believing whatever they want to hear. There were also some, there was also some, some of the questions about the water management. You know, I think some of those questions remain, you know, why the fire hydrants were running dry. But it appears that it's simply because they were, you know, battling these blazes that are truly unprecedented. And the strain was exacerbated by the fact that the winds were so high that the aerial drops for a while there, they couldn't operate the aerial drops. So they're relying solely on the fire hydrants. There was a loss of pressure. But from what I was reading, the reservoirs were actually, you know, filled to capacity. And so there has been a lot of, you know, lies being spread about them.

Well, they were filled and then they got drained. Yeah, look, in general, what I usually see with this is, no offense, but every single time any weather event happens, we all hear about climate change, even climate catastrophe, et cetera, language, which is clear in terms of what the implication is. I would say electorally, that clearly is not a popular view, at least from what I can see. Most people still prioritize management or whatever. They don't want to curtail their standard of living or whatever, join the Paris Climate Accord. So that has now moved to a place where everything has to be in terms of city. I think it can be a little bit of both. In general, there's usually a cry for

people to say, oh, we have to figure out exactly why this is happening. I try to take the pragmatic view of it's clear to me that if this is going to be a problem, we should probably invest more. And it does seem it's pretty chronically underfunded. But in general, like that's kind of how I see the battle lines here being drawn is that, you know, from the left, it's just climate, climate, climate, climate. It's almost like there's – yeah, but there's something that can be done about it. Sure. Which is, you know, we live in a place where we can have more water. A lot of people on the left are the ones who were raising the problems with the fire department being underfunded and the budget being cut. But, again, no city is going to be able to handle, no state is going to be able to handle this on its own.

In fact, I mean, California's probably done more to try to mitigate climate change. And even as a large economy, like, it has to be a collective response. And so, you know, I don't really agree with your assessment of the polling in terms of people's desire to take action in this regard. But you also have to remember that there's been like a, you know, 50-year cover-up of the, you know, the reality of climate change is ongoing. That cover-up is ongoing. And there are a lot of very wealthy people who are quite interested in maintaining a status quo that benefits them and are just hoping they can hire

a private firefighter to mitigate the damage. So I don't think this cover-up stuff seems anymore. I mean, the truth is... Of course it does. No, no. People know. The truth is... No, because the proposition is what?

Oh, we need an all-electric future. We need to get rid of fossil fuels. It's bullshit. It's just not going to happen. It's not bullshit. No, people are not going to—people, first of all, don't want to do that. People are not going to do that. It's not reality in terms on the right, rather than acknowledging that the climate change has fueled these extreme catastrophes, which could help to mount a public campaign to collectively try to address the problem, as we also do because we've already arrived. You know, last year was the hottest year on record. The last decade have been the hottest 10 years on record. We're already past 1.5 degrees Celsius increase from pre-industrial times. So we've already arrived here. So you're right. There needs to be massive investment in mitigation.

But rather than doing that, the focus is on these, you know, what happened with the fire hydrants or, oh, it's DEI. Look, they've got a woman fire chief. That's really the problem here. And so there is a massive distraction campaign to keep people from actually grappling with the underlying causes here that are leading not just to this particular situation, but also, you know, help fuel the devastating hurricanes that flooded and, you know, were a total disaster for Western North Carolina and other regions that have made Florida effectively uninsurable. Like all of these things fit together, but instead it's, oh, it's DEI, it's wokeism, it's the, you know, the fire department getting cut,

whatever, when the bigger picture here is quite clear. Right, but here's the problem, is that by denying the fact that there's these articles from the LA Times, like the LAFD is too white, seems like a bit of an issue. It seems like a pure competence problem for me. I don't care what color or what gender. That lady seemed pretty competent to me. What's up? That lady who's running the fire department seems pretty competent to me. I'm not talking about her specifically. I'm talking about the fact that at a time in 2021, there literally were articles about DEI in the LA fire department. I think that's a problem. I think competency itself is the core for what all functions of life-saving organizations should be. I mean, I'm not going

to get into specifically parsing like, why are all these lesbians in the fire department, which appears to be like a vogue thing online. Instead, I would say, look, I don't care who you are. Can you do the job? Are we making sure the standards are there? And so that is, in my opinion, the problem is, is that nothing is ever comes to mitigation. What evidence do you have that any of them are not competent? Oh, I'm not talking about that. I'm saying a culture around ensuring that we have more black or lesbian firefighters does not seem to me to comport with a culture of competency itself. You have no evidence.

Well, what am I supposed to do? Go do a systematic study? Yeah. Yes, I expect there to be evidence if you make a claim. Okay, then what evidence do you have that a pure white fire department can't do the best job? I mean, that's what I'm saying. DEI itself is a nonsensical thing that prioritizes equity for the sake of itself. It's such a distraction, though. Why is it a distraction? Okay. Yeah. You think that if you had had a man in charge of the fire department, they could have stopped the fires? I didn't. Like, you have no evidence for that.

You just assume that because it's a woman, she's not good at the job or because she's a lesbian, she's not good at the job. What I'm saying is that there has been a priority. Such a distraction from the core problem here, which is that you have a 1,200-year drought. You have the temperature, average temperature in Calvert is five degrees hotter. The Santa Ana winds are nothing new. The reason it is so devastating are because of those two factors. And that has nothing to do whether there's a black person or a lesbian or a white lady or a white dude at the head of the fire department. Nothing to do with that. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop.

It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and

they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that I'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. What I am saying is that it is clear there was a culture in the state of California and in the LA Fire Department specifically to look at quote-unquote equity over the last three to four year period. Do I think on average across all organizations, corporate, fire department, police, military, that that culture competes with competency? Absolutely. Yes, I do. I am not

personally indicting any of the people who are at the top of this or looking at their appearance and immediately making a judgment. I am saying through both experience, through observation, that DEI itself is something that is generally the enemy of competence. It is on the people who are going to racially discriminate against others to prove that racial discrimination or sexual discrimination is better for competency, which is the core function. What do you think is the more important problem here? That's not what I'm talking about though.

But I'm saying that it is. But why focus on it then, if it's not that important? Because it obviously is important. What is the number one factor here causing these fires in your opinion? What is the number one factor? That led to the devastation of these fires? Yeah, drought conditions and wind, of course.

Okay, so let's talk about it. No, we just did a whole thing about it. You just like dodge, oh, climate change, whatever. Why are these lefties so obsessed with climate change? and wind, of course. So let's talk about it. We just did a whole thing about it. Dodge, oh, climate change, whatever. Why are these lefties so obsessed with climate change? Because it's the number one thing driving this devastation, driving the Western North Carolina devastation. That is not true.

No, it is. That is just simply not true. Go look at how popular the Paris Climate Accords were. Go look at how popular investments in green energy are. But the thing is, Sagar, too, that you act like public opinion is just this static thing that just sits there and is what it is versus something that is malleable and shapeable and that people change their mind based on, I don't know, their home being destroyed by a climate-fueled catastrophe, whether they're here or in Western North Carolina. So yeah, I, as someone who analyzes these situations, of course I'm going to focus on

the number one factor that is causing these absolute cataclysms here and around the world and really is going to contribute to destabilizing the entire globe. So the reason why I talk about it is I think that the way it codes, and this is what many people who talk about it are not able to do, is they are unable to communicate this in a manner which does not tell American citizens that their lives are not going to be significantly curtailed, which I think the true reality of most of this discussion is, is, oh, we have to get rid of cars that have too much emissions. We have to significantly curtail the way that we consume goods. We have to reduce our quote-unquote carbon footprint, which means what? Which means that the price of all this stuff is going to go up. Consumption

itself is going to go down. I don't even necessarily think that's a bad thing per se. It's going to be tough in a hyper-individualistic and consumer capitalist society, which is the United States. Most of the way that this stuff is communicated is usually you're the problem, our whole society is the issue, or some imaginary wealth tax of 50% is going to change everything. It's just not. The bulk of the emissions are from the giant corporations and the wealthy. And by the way, what is going to increasingly fuel carbon emissions is this race for AI development, which is incredibly resource intensive, which we're having no conversation and debate about. But the reality is we have the technology to be able to do this. It just requires collective,

yes, large scale, federal government led collective action. Yeah, but significantly changing the American way of life, which I think that most people don't want to do. But I don't even think that's true. But there are studies, for example, in Louisiana where they have major, there was the oil, I forget exactly, the facilities that were there. There's a good book about it, I'm removing the name. The people there

who were the most affected by the oil industry and others are the most Republican because they are like, listen, at the end of the day, even though they're literally being poisoned by some of the things around them. Because their livelihoods are tied to extraction. Yeah, but their point was is that it's clear to me that the left, the Green New Deal, et cetera, wants to do away with my job and I don't trust that they're going to do anything for me. Because who told them that? It wasn't the left that told them that.

It was the right that told them that. So you think that they're brainwashed or they can think for themselves? I think they can think for themselves. I think they're right. I think they've looked at the failures of the government in the past in things like NAFTA to be able to deliver quality of life. But, I mean, again, I'm not saying it's an easy problem. But how is the American quality, how's the American way of life going in L.A. right now? How's the American way of life going in Asheville, North Carolina right now? How's the American way of life going in huge parts of the Gulf Coast that

have been devastated by hurricanes and are going to be, how's the American way of life going in Miami where when it rains, it just like, you know, floods the whole city. So yeah, there's, yes, there would be a cost. There would be a transition, period. But the consequences of not acting, like you ignore the consequences of not acting. Oh, I'm not ignoring anything. And those are absolutely grave and dire. And instead, you know, want to talk about like, oh, there's a lesbian in charge of the fire department.

Isn't that the real problem? No, it's not the real fucking problem. From the fact that we're talking about DEI itself, which has been pervaded through the California government. But beyond that, which is bringing it to a democratic question. People have been bombarded with propaganda since I was probably born that, oh, everything is horrible. The sea levels are going to rise. Many of these predictions don't end up being true, which then, no, but it's not because people said, oh, X amount of coastline was going to disappear by, what is it, 2025? Didn't happen. The same, you know, catastrophic

language is being used over and over again. People don't feel or see the fact that things are changing all that much beyond hurricanes and or fires. I think we should speak pragmatically. We can both accept that there will be more fire, more hurricane, et cetera, and say, okay, so what are we going to do about that? Well, we have to invest a lot more money in this than this. We don't necessarily need to say, oh, all electric cars are going to be driven in the state of California by 2030. Ridiculous, absurd, never going to happen in the first place. At the end of the day, it's about a consumptive mindset, which fundamentally you're talking there about transition. That requires a lot of trust from people that their lives and their jobs and all this quote unquote just transition language was going to happen. I don't think there is any reason after the failures of COVID or after the last five years to say that would be competently managed or it would be one in which we should as a vision buy into. We have probably one of the most atomized individualistic times in modern American history.

I think there's a lot of reasons for that and And immigration being number one. But in all of that, in all of that, you will not get to a point where everyone's just going to buy into this kumbaya, like, oh, I'm going to give up, you know, 30% of my consumption versus a quote-unquote just transition. You're just making that up. No, I'm not. You are. Because Donald Trump just won the popular vote. You completely are. Who is against electric vehicle mandates. Sagar, Sagar, what I'm saying you're making up is the 30%, you're going to have to reduce your consumption 30%, blah, blah, blah. Maybe if you're like, you know, an Elon Musk of the world, maybe that might require some sacrifice. But, I mean, what you're basically saying is we can't solve any big collective problem together. No, I'm not saying we can't solve it.

Just give up. We can't solve it we can't solve any big collective problem together. No, I'm not saying we can't solve it. Like, just give up. We can't solve it. We cannot solve any big collective problem. We're too atomized. We're too individual. So forget about it. Just let her rip and hope that you're one of the people who can afford the private firefighters when it comes for your house. Because that's the track that we're on right now is just basically, like, every man for themselves.

If you're rich, you can rebuild. If you're poor, like, sorry, you can't get home insurance. You're screwed. And, you know, the fire department is being cut because billionaires don't want to pay taxes. So you just basically have to pray that you and your loved ones are going to be able to make it. Look, I'm not defending billionaire tax levels,

but don't they pay the most tax than anybody else in the state of California? I mean, that's what I'm talking about. This is a state with a budget. What percent of their income do they pay in tax? Probably five to seven. Next to nothing. By the way, Elon Musk pays next to nothing in tax. I am not defending billionaire tax rates. What I'm saying is California is a G7 nation in and of itself. I think it would be G5 if it were its own independent country. So the idea it's not wealthy enough to handle this seems ridiculous to me. There are plenty of developed nations all across the world

that seem to have a much better and more competent fire and hurricane disaster relief, Japan being one of them. My point is, is that it's clear within the context of mitigation itself, a lot more can be done. Democratically, if you want to continue to make the case for lack of consumption, et cetera, you can. I don't think it's going to work. I mean, if you want to continue to make the case for lack of consumption, etc., you can.

I don't think it's going to work. I think the most honest discussion of climate change we ever had was, who was the person who made the documentary with Michael Moore? I'm forgetting the name of it. And we talked a lot about it here over at Rising. We even interviewed him. And he was the most honest person because he's like, yeah, we have to radically cut consumption.

I mean, actual quiet part out loud that came from most of the people who study carbon emissions, et cetera, was what was the single most important thing for drop of carbon emissions. It's when everybody stayed at home during COVID. That's the truth. If you actually wanted to see it, a dramatic cut, all of us have to stay at home, reduce our consumption, stay inside. People don't want to do that. We live in a democratic society. It just requires, I mean, reduce our consumption, stay inside. People don't want to do that. That's really not true. We live in a democratic society. It just requires, I mean, first of all, renewable energy technology has improved dramatically. In particular, solar has improved dramatically. Yes, but how is it made?

It's made in China from filthy materials. It has a ton of emissions. The lifetime offset of a solar panel in the United States will never offset the amount that it requires to make it. This is the problem. We want to make these windmills, which, again, are not efficient. They have, what, 10 to 25 percent carrying. The most efficient power that we have is called nuclear power. Nobody wants to build it.

Everyone's too afraid. That's not true either. I mean, even the climate left has embraced nuclear. Like, Greta has embraced nuclear. Great. When's the next reactor coming on? It's not going to happen. Again, Sager, like, okay, so the way things are is just how they're going to be.

That's your position. And I just find that really, look, you might be right, but I have to say what I think would make a better situation, where we don't have to constantly be, you know, watching people tearfully talk about how all their possessions are lost and they've had to flee the home that they've lived in for decades and decades and where parts of the country are just increasingly uninhabitable and where you can't be insured and where, you know, the only people who have a prayer of like surviving in a reasonable fashion are the wealthy who can pay for the private firefighters and, you know, rebuild even if they don't have homeowner's insurance. Like,

you might be right that we're too far gone to be able to deal with it. We certainly have not dealt with it to this point. But it's just not true that the technology doesn't exist. The technology does exist. What doesn't exist is the will to actually have the collective action required to try to tackle this problem in a serious way, which you're right, at this point, require a lot of mitigation, but also, you know, rather than just letting it rip and see what happens when it's two degrees Celsius and when it's five degrees Celsius, to actually try to, you know, get the trends under control, because we do have the technology now. Look, I think we do. We've had the technology since 1970. It's called a nuclear reactor. And let me not let people off the hook.

Here's the truth. When you actually want to build a nuclear reactor, oh, I don't want that in my neighborhood. It's too unsafe and all this. And so what happens? We use bullshit zoning regulations to keep it out. We haven't built a new reactor in the United States since 1976. It's great that elites, people, and others are talking about how good it is. In practice, if the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission greenlit a reactor tomorrow, it would still probably take a decade before we were able to buy it. The story out of Georgia is extremely blackpilling for both how much it costs, for the number of community pushback. I feel like there is a democratic check on what is real and what

is not. I would love to see 1,500 reactors across this country. And then you can have as much AI, electric car, and all of that as you want. We don't have to burn a single, you know, we don't have to have any oil, natural gas, et cetera. It will not happen because I know, you know, you can see even today, this boomer fear of the reactor is everywhere. The platform you have to advocate for that rather than just dismiss it as like, well, it's not going to happen. There's nobody more pro-nuclear than I have. I've been putting it out there. But I've also watched with trepidation and with reality about how even Diablo Canyon, you know, bringing back on that, was a titanic fight in the state of California.

About how in Germany, sure, it's great Greta said it. Well, most of the reactors are going offline. They're still burning more coal or burning Russian natural gas. Even Japan, the country I love, even the fact they had one nuclear disaster where not a single person was killed, and they basically took off a huge percentage of theirs because people are afraid. It's like dealing with this is just so maddening because the truth is, is that the actual democratic check on this stuff, what I was talking about with oil or with nuclear, many people are either

afraid, they can have all the facts that they want, they're just not going to listen. And in the meantime, we also have all these issues that we have to deal with. But the solutions, while they may be easy and staring us in the face, actually convincing people of that, I have not seen a correct playbook for it. Both on nuclear or climate or any of this. Your ideal, like if you could just know, Sagar gets to run the world. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Your ideal would be to tackle climate change using nuclear energy. Well, I think that at a certain point, things are mostly far gone at this point. A lot of it is going to be mitigation to the extent that we can reduce further carbon emissions. I would build

1,500 nuclear reactors tomorrow across the entire United States, fulfill Richard Nixon's vision of 1,000 nuclear reactors at a minimum, greenlight this, have abundant electrical power in which Americans don't have to worry about their power bills. We could build as much as we want. All the AI people can hook up to the grid. If you want an electric car, you can drive it, and we would have dramatically less carbon emissions. That is an abundant future. But I'm realistic, too. I don't think it's going to happen. Listen, I think that that is a great direction. And I just don't know why you sneer at people who, you know, rather than just saying like, well, it's not going to happen, who try to make

the case for and try to hold on to a possibility that we could do something on that scale and try to actually mitigate the forces. I don't understand why you would sneer at people who are still trying to make that case. I'm not sneering per se. I don't like it. It's attitudinal because the attitudinal shift is one of which it's like people just don't, the attitudinal shift is we have to have, is that all of these discussions, like you were talking about DEI, et cetera, irrelevant, it's a coverup or it's the fault of the fossil fuel companies from 35 years ago covering up studies. I don't think that that's the problem. I think people have plenty of information. It's just that they don't care or they have very, very low institutional trust

to do anything about it. I would posit that you're missing a key part here, which is that you are acting like we live in a democracy. And I mean, you remember we covered, and I have a piece of this in my monologue, but remember this dude who was like an ExxonMobil lobbyist and he was caught on camera, thought he was doing a job interview, and he laid out the playbook. He said, yeah, it's not really, you know,

it's not really tenable for Exxon to just pretend like climate change isn't real anymore. They tried, they did it's not really, you know, it's not really tenable for Exxon to just pretend like climate change isn't real anymore. They tried, they did that for years and it was successful. And you still have members of Congress and whatever who will deny that climate change is real or diminish it or whatever. But he says, you know what we'll do? We'll back a solution that we know is never going to happen politically. And we will buy off members of Congress and number one senator that he mentioned was Joe Manchin to make sure that our interests are protected and nothing ever changes. And yeah, so that playbook has not gone away. It is tremendously effective.

And then, like I said, you have a lot of Zuckerberg, Elon, all of the players in the AI space, of which there are many who also are very interested in not having this conversation and not changing the status quo because of the way that AI and crypto are so resource and carbon intensive. So yeah, I do think that that dramatically impacts what is possible because it's not that people, anytime you pull people about wanting a green energy transition, about support for the Paris Climate Accords, et cetera, et cetera, they're very receptive to that. There's long been a majority coalition in favor of a green transition. But I do think that a lot of what blocks change is politicians who are bought off

by the fossil fuel industry and other industries who want to keep things the way that they are. So listen, I'm not saying that what I want to happen or what you want to happen, which you laid out, is likely to occur. But I'm not going to stop fighting for it because I think it would be better for the country and the world if we didn't have people having to stare down these fires, you know, basically on their own and losing all their possessions and losing their lives at time and, you know, having to deal with the terror that is these persistent extreme climate emergencies. I totally get it. I think the point that I'm generally trying to make is that the attitudinal way that people receive a lot of information about climate change is default

skepticism. West Virginia is a good example. Why do people in West Virginia not give a damn when people come over there and tell them about transition? They don't believe you because they lost all their jobs from coal, which they blame on green energy. You can say that it's probably more to do with fracking if we're all telling the truth, but they don't want to hear it. They think, you know, the Hillary Clinton, we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of work. That attitude of disdain, of hatred, of what is already a blue collar, you know, profession, which is predominantly culturally now shifted to the right is one of extraordinarily lack of trust in cultural institutions. And yeah, you can, I mean, you're sneering at DEI discussion. They hear it and they see it because a lot of these people

understand what it's like to be discriminated against because they're working class, white, and that's part of their culture. And they understand very clearly that at least culturally, Trump or Joe Manchin or these types of people are the ones who are fighting for them on the issues that they care about. And they trust them to look out for more of their interests more. And, you know, I would also say who replaced Joe, Joe Manchin, Republican. So what do we know? It's like the party and the capture of the state was Trump was, what did he win it by 40, 50 points. It's one of the biggest swings to a Republican there is a good example of what I'm talking about, about lack of institutional trust, both on culture, which clearly these people care about a lot,

but also in terms of who they want to look out for their interests. And that's a difficult conversation to have. And it's one where any discussion of Green New Deal or anything coded, even like somewhat left-wing, is just a non-starter for a lot of these folks. It seems politically, from what I can see. I think you, again, leave out an important part of that story. And I'm not saying there's nothing to the story you just told, but I think you leave out an important part of that story, which is, you know, over years and years, there was a massive amount of money spent in the political system in West Virginia to back groups like, quote unquote, friends of coal, that tried,

you know, the explicit goal was to convince people of exactly the story that you're telling, that they would be screwed and the state left behind and all the jobs would go away and that, you know, anyone who wanted to improve the environment and deal with climate change was an enemy and hated them and hated their way of life, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, you can't leave out that part of the story, which is, you know, I don't think, at this point, I don't think we have a democracy. I think we have an oligarchy. I think that the whole system is completely bought. I think these politicians are completely bought. And the genuine, like when Green New Deal was first revealed, huge majority support for it.

Huge, even in places like West Virginia, there continue to be majorities in favor of green energy. I think this is one of those fake sunrise polls. There's just no way. It's not true. I mean, just go and look at it. Like you can't just dismiss the numbers. Yeah, because it was probably asked in the question of like, do you think you would get a free job? You can't just dismiss the numbers when you don't like them. No, but I'm saying, okay, but nothing in their voting pattern bears that out. So this is like when people talk about Medicare for all. It polls popularly on paper. Go and actually ask people, do you like your doctor?

Do you want to leave private health insurance? Like, do you trust the government to administer? Oh, absolutely not. Some 50% of people. In practice, people can intuit that this is not how it would actually happen. So nothing in the voting pattern of West Virginia, of Louisiana, of Texas, or Pennsylvania, any of the places which are the most affected and most tied to oil and gas, who would be the ones susceptible to the quote-unquote just transition, indicates to me whatsoever that they support the Green New Deal. If anything, the Green New Deal

politicians of AOC and others are the ones who are most reviled by them. There are a lot of reasons for that, but we have to have some realistic skepticism as to why. One of those is a massive propaganda effort to convince people that this would be impossible and unworkable. And all I'm saying is, you know, and the cost of it is always raised. And all I'm saying is what is the cost of not acting? Because to me, it seems pretty dire at this point. And, you know, this will be the most devastating fire in L.A. history. The cost of rebuild is going to be astronomical. A lot of that is going to fall on individual people or it's going to fall on taxpayers at the federal and state level.

So, you know, there's the cost of inaction is also both deadly and extremely expensive and causes massive disruptions to, quote unquote, the, you know, American life. You can ask people here, you can ask them in Western North Carolina, you can ask them in certain places in Florida and Colorado, all around the country. And those zones are going to only expand and expand. So while I absolutely agree that politically it seems very unlikely, and in fact I feel pretty like I think we're all pretty much fucked, if I'm being totally honest. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop advocating for what I think would be a better direction. I don't think that we're all quote-unquote fucked.

We live in the richest country in the history of humanity. We will figure it out. I'm not figuring it out. No, but okay. I mean, you're the one who just said we can't do anything, and we have no ability to act collectively or solve big problems, and I think you're probably right about that. I'm sure you'll find this anathema, but I do have

some actual confidence in the free market and innovation. People in Thomas Malthus's time said, oh, the population collapse. Remember, what was it? The 1960s book about population bomb, totally fake. The invention of GMO in a fertilizer product had made it to carrying capacity of Earth is now, what are we at, seven-something billion? So, look, like in 1960, they had the same catastrophic apocalyptic narrative. By 20 years, it was outdated, and it seemed utterly ridiculous. So do I think we're all fucked? No, I think we're going to be okay. Are some people who live at, what's that island that's sinking?

Is it the Maldives or Marshall Island? Yeah, Maldives. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be you, but you know. How about LA? Would you want to be an LA resident? Would you want to be living on the Gulf Coast of Florida? It's still a city. Would you want to be living in Western North Carolina?

We're about to do a segment about how price gouging is happening with rent. I mean, there's still a city of, what, 10 million. In fact, apparently the number of people who want to move to LA and to buy real estate there is so high that they can't even keep up with demand. So clearly, the people themselves, they mostly want to stay. I think some of the ultra-wealthy will flee. And a lot of people still want to move there or want to live there. That's part of the reason it's one of the most desirable and wealthy neighborhoods in the entire US. So I think that things will be okay. I'm not even

thinking that things are going to be great, but we seem to figure it out here. Does that mean that it'll be like waving a magic wand tomorrow and it will all just go away? But I think the demographic population bomb example is a good one. Most people who have that analysis are wrong in a very, very short period of time. People said that about oil. America will never be energy independent. I was just reading a book about 1980s in the Permian Basis in Texas. It said this basin is dead. Nobody will ever take any more oil out of it. It's economically depressed. 2005 fracking is invented. The boom happens. And the number of jobs and economic activity that since that have exploded in the area

in the last 20 years has turned America into the largest energy producing country in the history of the world. So things can change rapidly through technology. We were talking about how we're all going to be reliant on the Saudis by 2009. In fact, the Saudis are the ones who are trying to depress our oil industry. So I just think things are a lot more moving. You know, technology has a way of changing the conversation in a way that is very, very difficult to predict. I think the only thing we can predict with any certainty is that some technology will come forward. That doesn't mean everything will be perfect, but it does mean that the status quo will not be the same. Well, I'll hope and pray that you're right. Okay. I think everything that might've dropped

in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hophop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend.

So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that,

I'm really happy or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to, we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava

for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams,

NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne

from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, which is Hassan Piker actually talked to some of the incarcerated firefighters, some roughly 1,000 of which have been sent out to fight these blazes. program, longstanding program in California where California inmates are trained in fire prevention and firefighting techniques. There's a number of camps established across the state. And then they're sent out to fight these blazes alongside professional firefighters, but earning some $5 to $10 per day. So Hassan, who lives in the, in LA or the LA area, went and actually spoke to some of these individuals. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. All right. Will you like it?

Yeah. Do you feel like it's a, it's almost like a respite from being, is it better than being in prison or no? It's way better because I was in a prison yard. I'm seeing guys get stabbed, get jumped, get beat up. The cops treat us like shit. But here we get better treatment, right? They talk to us like humans. They talk to us like humans. We got a job. We're underpaid, but we got a job. Yeah. You feel me? And then the community comes out and shows us all kinds of love. We never received that growing up. We never received that kind of love, that kind of recognition for anything we've done.

So now doing this kind of stuff and all this love coming, that's life-changing for a lot of guys. That's all they need is a little bit of recognition. With this, it's life-changing. We get opportunities at careers. How long was your sentence? 17 years. 17 years. God damn. They're going to shave it off. They're going to shave it off. They better shave it off. California State doesn't have any sort of reintegration program.

California has an MCRP program and they got for Scott Budnick, he's trying to integrate his ARC program. So MCRP is the reintegration program from being incarcerated to being on the outside. It's limited, but it's offering you a way to try to deinstitutionalize. But in a sense, it's kind of just keeping you on a leash, sadly to say, but that's what it is. They do offer some

programs, but they're very limited, very limited because you're usually private owned companies. Again, earning $5 to $10 per day to risk their lives in these fires, obviously that's atrocious. They should be earning a lot more. You ask yourself, okay, well, why did they do it then? And number one, and those guys described it, you know, described some of the aspects. Number one is the sense of like, okay, we're able to get back to the community and earn this level of respect, which is something we don't normally get to experience as incarcerated people. And then the other hope is that the sentence will be somewhat reduced, although the amount that it's reduced is very, very small. For every one day they serve, they get two days knocked off of their sentence. But the other hope is that, okay, well,

then when I get out of prison, I'll be trained and I'll be able to get a job in this sector. And, you know, there's a lot of research that says when you are able to get a job coming out of prison, you're much which tries to help individuals like these guys who participated in this program be able to enter into forestry and wildland firefighting. Their recidivism rate is 10% compared to the California state average of 42%. So it is a significant amount. The problem is that actually up until just a few years ago, when they passed legislation to deal with this, if you had a criminal record, you couldn't go into firefighting. So all of your training and your hopes would be completely quashed. And it's still very difficult. So not a lot of individuals are able to go out of prison and go into this particular industry. The other thing that's a concern here, Sagar, especially when you're, you know, using an incarcerated

labor force for, you know, insanely low wages, they also found they were much more likely to experience injuries, whether it was cuts, bruises, dislocations, fractures, also injuries from smoke inhalation. So there's also concerns that, you know, they're not treated the same way and protected in the same way that the professional firefighters are. Yeah, I was reading here just now about the way that this program is justified in terms of the work release and also their ability to then transition. I know that this is common in many prisons to train certain types of skills that can transition like electrician and or other jobs, but obviously it seems pretty crazy that you couldn't work this job, so there was no point really training.

And I mean, obviously it's something to do to get out there. But yeah, it was interesting to see this. I didn't realize that this is such a widespread practice in the state of California, which I do think has the largest prison population of any state in the overall. I mean, it's also the most populous state in the entire union. So, yeah, I had no idea that this was such a common practice. Yeah, it is pretty wild. At the same time, you were referencing there's a lot of price gouging going on right now in the state of California, specifically with regard to rental apartments. So, obviously, people's homes have

been devastated. Massive areas have been evacuated. You have a lot of people looking for a temporary place to stay. You can put this up on the screen. Apparently the, you know, the desire for rental housing in the area is just absolutely insane. The headline here, real estate on LA's west side grows further out of reach with the fires. This real estate agent says, usually I get five to 10 applicants in total for a rental. Today for one apartment listing in Brentwood, I got almost 1,000 applicants. 1,000 applicants. Let's go ahead and put this next tweet up on the screen here. It's a reporter who was digging into some of the numbers here. A furnished Bel Air home on Zillow today went for $29,500 a month, so almost $30,000 a month. A few months ago, it was roughly half that.

The asking was $15,900. I called up the agency. She said she told her client to relist the home after this week's L.A. fires. Quote, people are desperate. You can probably get good money. $30,000 a month. That is absolutely. $15,000 to $30,000 a month. Absolutely.

I mean, look, again, it's hard. I know most people are like, oh, if you can afford $15,000 a month, you can afford $30,000. It's like, not the point. The point is that you're watching a rapid shrinkage of the housing market. And I was actually just reading this morning from the Wall Street Journal about how a big problem in the state of California are elderly citizens who are like 69, 70 years old who bought their home some 30 years ago and are house rich. And it's a good problem to have, but now your house is gone. There's a big question. They bought their house at half a million, 600,000, something like that. Now it's worth 2.2, 3.5 million. I talked previously about that with the Pacific Palisades specifically where the average home price is roughly like

3.5 million. Most of the people who bought them did not buy it for anywhere close to that. There's a lot of questions for them about the carrying cost of those houses. There was a Prop 13 in the state of California, locks the amount of property tax that you pay to only increase by some 1% to 2% and not on the assessment of the current home value. So the question for them right now is if that's going to reset whenever they rebuild their home, will they be reassessed at the current market value? There's no way that if you're making Social security or even like $100,000 a year, that you can afford $40,000 a year post-tax expense on property tax. So there's that.

Have you been able to get an answer? No, no one has answered me. There has been, so I asked actually some California policy heads. Some people said, well, maybe, but they have to rebuild it with the same configuration. There's also a question of the actual cost of timber and a lot of the housing inputs that go into it. Also, if you rebuild more than I think it's 110%, it could trigger a reassessment. There's a lot of regulation and red tape here where, I mean, look, if you got the opportunity to rebuild your house, you may want to do things a little differently. You don't necessarily want to do something, same floor plan from 1970. I wouldn't. Right. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to say, well, it was an opportunity to do things a little differently. You don't necessarily want to do something, same poor plan from 1970. I wouldn't. Right. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to say, well, it was an

opportunity to do something new, but if you do, you're going to get penalized for it. And then actually it could trigger your own carrying costs of this. So there's a big question mark of what you're going to do and how they're actually going to be able to both have the rebuilding. Gavin Newsom has said he's going to waive the building regulation to allow this to happen. That's a good step in the right direction. The entire state of California is a nimby nightmare for anybody who wants to build housing. True. Residents like it that way.

Let's also not absolve people of their responsibility. But for the people who have been massively affected by this, in the interim, it is an absolute scramble for a place to stay. So there's a video that's been going around of a woman talking about her house and how she, you know, she was just hosted Christmas. Her kids grew up there, et cetera. She's like, I'm staying in a hotel. It's like, well, we can all do the math. Average hotel price in the United States is like 200 bucks in the middle of a disaster and all this. We all know a couple hundred bucks, you know, five, four, 500. You stay there for a month. All of a sudden you're out like a couple of grand. And you do that, you know, over time. If you're lucky, you can go stay with family. But what are a lot of people

going to do? They're going to go bust. They don't necessarily have the cost. So this affects tens of thousands of people. And it's a huge question mark as to what happens. I mean, I have relative confidence the, you know, the people who are genuinely worth millions will figure it out. They can afford that $30,000. But I actually am concerned about these house-rich folks because what do you do? I mean, if the vast majority of your net worth is tied up in your house and your house burns to the ground, and now property tax is an existential question and you already pay the highest income tax in the United States on estate income. Do you stay?

Do you go? Will estate actually do everything it can to put you back in? I'm pretty skeptical. And then I didn't even talk about the probably thousands of renters and others who they have nowhere to go. I mean, what do you do? Now you have to compete in a constrained marketplace with now the richest of the rich also entering and driving the rent up. So it's a nightmare.

It's a nightmare. And then the longer-term prospect, too, of, you know, homeowners insurance, already State Farm canceled thousands of policies in Palisades, you know, in Pacific Palisades, looking at the risk of wildfire and saying, you know, this is not a good bet for us anymore. You are definitely not going to be able to get homeowners insurance in the private market. The California has a like insurer of last resort

program. It already is very much stretched thin. And, you know, this is a story that's playing out not just in California, but in all kinds of states across the country. This catastrophe has also really raised a lot of questions about the practice of hiring private firefighters. So the New York Times has an article about this this morning, but also The Sun had an article about this too, where Rick Caruso, who was a billionaire developer, former mayoral candidate, he hired a private firefighting force fire crews to protect his properties in the area. There continue to be questions about whether these crews, because remember, the hydrants were running dry because of the level of, you know, insane demand to try

to cope with these fires. So the other question is whether these private firefighting crews are using the public water and, you know, siphoning off some of the critical resources to try to protect properties of people who aren't billionaire real estate developers or celebrities or who else. Kim Kardashian had previously, in a previous fire, had faced a lot of criticism for hiring a private firefighting crew to protect her own property. And, you know, this you also have insurance agencies that hire these crews to to protect the properties that they've insured. And, you know, you might say, like, OK, well, if you're rich and you can do it, like, why wouldn't you do it to protect your own property if you don't have confidence that the government is going to be able to handle it? But obviously, number one, there's the question of resources.

And if you're taking away just because you are wealthy and able to do it, that's one problem. And then the other problem is just, you know, over time, if this becomes an individual, like I'm going to have an individual fire response versus we're going to have a collective societal fire response, then obviously you're going to end up with the wealthy having their property protected, the working class getting screwed, and we're increasingly on this trajectory. The number in the New York Times article, 45% of firefighters in this country are private. How did I not know this? Am I running in

the wrong circles? I've never even heard of a private fire department. It would not even cross my mind ever to be like, let me call a private fire agent. I didn't know this was a thing. It would just call 911. I had no idea. Yeah, I didn't know. 45%. Well, and apparently, you know, the origin. It's probably just coming out west because, you know, for us here, fire is not that uncommon.

Yeah, we don't have the same risk. And, you know, some of what they do is they'll, like, in advance of a fire, they'll go and try to, like, fireproof the property or whatever. It's part of what they do is they'll like in advance of a fire, they'll go and try to like fireproof the property, whatever is part of what they do, too. But the origins of firefighting service or into the insurance fund and your house is on fire, we're just going to let it burn. Obviously, the issue with that is that fires don't stay in one place. So, you know, if you let the house of the working class person burn, there's no guarantees that that's not going to jump to other properties, jump to the wealthy neighborhoods, et cetera. So I see a very sort of dystopian situation that is unfolding here as well. You already mentioned, but we can throw this up on the screen, a 10 Gavin Newsom passing

an executive order trying to get rid of some of the red tape so that they could rebuild faster in these areas. California, famously, very difficult area to build in all sorts of regulatory hurdles that have made it difficult and been part of why there's been such a, you know, unbelievable cost of living specifically with regard to housing costs

in LA, San Francisco, all of the major cities in California. And then the last piece, just so people get a sense of, well, this is a very devastating and expensive disaster. Who's going to be picking up the tab for rebuilding? Wall Street Journal had a breakdown. Effectively, they're projecting there's going to be something like $50 billion in loss. This is A11 we can put up on the screen. Something like $50 billion in

loss. Some portion of that will be covered by insurance. There's a shrinking California insurance market. We'll leave LA residents more dependent on a patchwork of federal programs, charitable aid, and their own savings. State Farm last year said they would not renew policy for 30,000 homeowners in California. That includes 69% of those who live in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. So those people who, I mean, it is a very wealthy area. So these are, we're talking about wealthy individuals, but they're going to be kind of screwed. California's plan has 451,000 residential policies. That's up from 40% from just a year earlier. So the number of properties that California as a state is now

insuring has absolutely skyrocketed. There is a cap in the amount of damages you can cling there. It's like $3 million, but actually a lot of these specific Palisades houses are going to be more than $3 million to replace. FEMA kicks in for temporary shelter and supplies. That's, you know, relatively limited fund, but can help people with hotel costs and, you know, immediate needs. You've got a question about whether the federal government is going to pass an aid package. You already, listen, Trump doesn't like California, doesn't like Gavin Newsom, was re-elected to pass aid for Puerto Rico. You've already got two Republican senators who have said that they want a bunch of strings attached before they pass aid

because it's the state of California. So question mark about what you could get there. And then obviously the last bucket of money would just be individuals out of their own pockets and what they're able to scrape together to try to be able to rebuild. Yeah, I am. I do suspect that something will go through. I know that those Republican senators, but look, not to put on my, blue staters are going to love me for this. We're really going to say that the richest state in the entire nation doesn't get a federal bailout? Come on. If we look proportionately at the amount of income tax and others that California residents and others pay into the overall federal system, it would be ludicrous to say that they cannot get a overall bailout for disasters, especially when we consistently bail out for disaster relief. North Carolina, Florida, Alabama. I mean, my

maybe like woke take is that all states deserve a bailout in the event of a horrible disaster. I don't think that's a woke take. I think that's just like a basic humanity kind of a take. Like you shouldn't be punished because the president doesn't like your governor. I don't think it's possible. It's a reasonable take. I just don't think it's possible. What is it? 15% of the U.S. population lives in the state of California.

You got some 30, 40 million people who live there. Some of the richest, most important companies to the overall United States. And that's just like a accounting case. I would make the same case for Alabama. What's the poorest state in the union? Mississippi. If a natural disaster hit Mississippi,

even if they screwed it up, bail them out. But, of course, make sure that their agencies and others have maybe some strings attached in terms of you have to run it competently. But no matter who you are, if you live in the U.S., I think we should bail you out. Of course. No one said after Hurricane Katrina

where both the federal response and the local response was an utter catastrophe. No one was after Hurricane Katrina where both the federal response and the local response was an utter catastrophe. No one was like, because your politicians did a bad job, you're not going to get a bail. Like, that's absurd. But anyway, that's the conversation that is going on right now. So a political fight surely to come in the future. There we go. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones,

the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7 because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all? This your main man, Memphis Bleak, right here.

Host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule. The one thing that can't stop you or take away from you is knowledge. So whatever I went through while I was down

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